MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM: Shakespeare, RSC Stratford and Touring till 1st June
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM: William Shakespeare
Main House, Stratford Tkts 01789 403403
Runs: 2h 40m, one interval, till 23 March 2002, then touring till 1 June (info www.rsc.org.uk)
Review: Rod Dungate, 20 February 2002
An empty production that thinks style is more important than the play
Something has gone dreadfully wrong with Richard Jones's debut production at the RSC. DREAM is open to many interpretations – Nature is at war with itself as Oberon and Titania fight it out overnight. You can go for the light side or the dark side, faeries or fairies, the serious side or the comedic. But whatever a director's chosen attitude to the play an audience has the right to expect it to reveal something new or surprising, to be invited into the production to see something of themselves anew. In this production the vacuous direction and design do not bridge a path into the play but work as a barrier between audience and play.
Much work has gone in to creating the world around the play – creepy forest-tree noises, birds, insects and increasing numbers of flies. This is simply an empty flourish without thinking sufficiently about the world inside the play. Style seems to govern all, but style is not an end in itself: here it has much more to do with director and designers preening themselves and strutting about than it has with revealing the substance behind a text.
There are some fine actors in this company, but the acting on show is poor. Actors speak lines (or too often shout them) at each other with no meaning to sustain them. The effect is of empty verbal gesturing, as if the actors are not able to connect with what they're saying. It says something about a production when the most successful comic moment comes when Quince speaks the prologue to the play within the play because he's doing funny voice acting and his hat wobbles.
Dominic Cooper looks good as Puck and moves well, but finds himself stuck in a forced vocal register which mars the performance. Tim McMullan presents a world weary, even louche, Oberon, but injects so little variety or energy into the performance that it becomes somnambulistic. The four lovers are cast young and look all the more appealing for it, but their apparent inability to handle the text means they are neither comic nor touching – we simply don't care what happens to them.
And finally, Nicky Gillibrand (costume designer) has committed the cardinal designer sin. She has created costumes in which many of the actors look either undignified or plain silly: she ought to get up there and try acting in some of them herself.
Cast:
Theseus: Peter Lindford
Hippolyta, Priyanga Elan
Egeus: Steven Beard
Hermia: Gabrielle Jourdan
Lysander: Michael Colgan
Demetrius: Paul Chequer
Helena: Nikki Amok-Bird
Philostrate: Fergus Craig
Peter Quince: Martin Savage
Nick Bottom: Darrell D'Silva
Francis Flute: Richard Dempsey
Tom Snout: Gareth Farr
Snug: Dale Rapley
Robin Starveling: Steven Beard
Oberon: Tim McMullan
Titania: Yolanda Vazquez
Puck: Dominic Cooper
First Fairy: Michele Wade
Peaseblossom: Meredith MacNeill
Cobweb: Stephen Wight
Moth: Fergus Craig
Mustardseed: Oliver Maltman
Director: Richard Jones
Set Design: Giles Cadle
Costume Design: Nicky Gillibrand
Lighting: Matthew Richardson
Music: Jonathan Dove
Sound: Matt McKenzie
Production sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest
2002-02-22 10:29:28